State Champ Radio Pop
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A big part of the job at Saturday Night Live in the week leading up to showtime is convincing that week’s host or musical guest to appear in sketches that sometimes sound bizarre at best, or potentially disastrous at worst. That was the dilemma frequent SNL guest Justin Timberlake found himself in November 2008 when cast member Andy Samberg hit him up to see if he was in town to hop in on a bit that castmate Bobby Moynihan had cooked up.
“He said Bobby Moynihan has this great idea for a sketch about you, me, and him being Beyoncé’s background dancers that never made the cut,” Timberlake explained in the three-hour doc Ladies & Gentleman… 50 Years of SNL Music, which aired on NBC on Monday night (Jan. 27). “I was like ‘full leotard’? And he’s like, ‘yeah.’ I was like, ‘This is too funny. We have to do this.’”
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Here’s the thing: the three guys were totally down, but convincing Queen Bey to get super silly with them was going to be another matter entirely. In the exhaustive look at the show’s musical history co-directed by Oscar-winning Roots drummer Questlove, current SNL star Bowen Yang explained that “when you pitch a sketch that the musical guest is involved in potentially it can always go wrong.”
And, according to JT, at first Beyoncé was not into it. At all.
“She was very polite about it, but she was very hesitant. And when I say hesitant, I mean like, she was not having it,” Timberlake said. “I’m like: Does she know how funny this is gonna be? How beloved this whole moment will be?” Determined to commit to the bit, Timberlake decided that he had to show his fellow pop superstar how far he was willing to go to convince her.
“I put the leotard and the heels and the hose on and everything, and put a robe on,” he said. “I walked and knocked on her door, I threw the robe down and put my hands on my hips and she was like, ‘No you didn’t!’” Long story short, Bey said yea and the rest is SNL history.
In the final sketch (which is not officially available on YouTube), host Paul Rudd plays the “Single Ladies” video director introducing the singer to her new backup dancers, who she is nervous about.
“Oh look, don’t worry about the other dancers, B-Town,” Rudd tells her. “I hand-picked them myself, these guys are pros.” The three men then enter in all their black leotard, white tights and black heels regalia, assuring Bey that they are definitely warmed up, “like biscuits,” Moynihan says, with Timberlake adding the unhelpful second helping, “yeah, dance biscuits!”
Smash cut to the trio gyrating impertinently on, around and at Beyoncé and the singer repeatedly stopping filming until Rudd finally admits that they are his stepsons, who his wife said he had to spend more time with. “Aww, I didn’t know these were your sons,” Beyoncé says. “That’s very noble of you.”
“So you’ll let them be in your music video?” Rudd asks. “Hell no,” Bey replies.
Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music is available to stream now on Peacock.
Lady Gaga has been Mother Monster for about two decades. Now, she’s ready to be a mother.
In a cover story interview with Elle published Tuesday (Jan. 28) — just one day after the star finally announced her seventh studio album, Mayhem — Gaga revealed that she and fiancé Michael Polansky have talked “a lot” about starting their family very soon. In fact, the 13-time Grammy winner emphasized that her near future will focus on “me and Michael and our kids,” adding, “Sometimes I worry people will say I’m boring these days, but honestly, thank God I’m boring.
“Thank God!” she said. “Because I was living on the edge. I don’t know what was going to happen to me living that way.”
As for how she would navigate raising her children in the public eye, Gaga said, “That’s something Michael and I have talked about a lot — allowing our kids to be their own people…. It’s such an intense thing for kids coming into the world,” she continued. “And they’re told how to think and what to believe in and how to eat … I just kind of want to let my kids find out who they are.”
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The “Rain on Me” singer and businessman started dating shortly after meeting at a party in 2019, five years after which Polansky proposed in April 2024. The Joker: Folie à Deux actress has previously credited her fiancé with pushing her to make a new pop album, and while speaking to Elle, she revealed that Polansky helped pen “like, seven songs” on Mayhem — including single “Disease,” on which he’s credited as a songwriter.
The venture capitalist also spoke to Elle about being present for much of the creation of “Disease,” detailing how he would work on his laptop while watching his fiancée work her magic in the studio across the street from their home. “It’s been one of the most incredible parts of this chapter of my life, to live with and coexist alongside someone making art and being creative in ways that very few people get to experience,” he told the publication. “I think of myself as really lucky to have been there for it.”
Polansky also opened up about what it’s like to be in a relationship with one of the most famous women on the planet. “Accepting that you won’t have the privacy others might have was the hardest part,” he shared. “But [Gaga’s] comfort with it and patience with me has been amazing. Our relationship is probably a lot like everyone else’s. We just have to figure out how to do some of it in public.
“That makes it even more important for us to have strong friendships and close family relationships,” he added. “We find normalcy where we can.”
Dressed to the nines, bottle-blonde hair coiffed, black cab parked across the street. Rebecca Lucy Taylor — a.k.a. Self Esteem — is stepping outside the front door of her London flat, heading to “one of them fancy ‘dos,” when mild calamity strikes. Attached to the collar of her gown is a large, grey, electromagnetic security tag – one that would take a delicate operation to remove. Grey skies and a dash of brolly-ruining wind certainly aren’t helping the situation, either.
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“I just stood there like, ‘F–k this. When will it not be like this?,” she says, recalling the memory. To help illustrate what it felt like in the moment, Taylor talks with her palms pressed against her head. “I have a saying for times like this, like when you get toilet paper on your shoe: ‘That’s very Self Esteem.’
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“There’s part of my ego that wants to tell myself all of this is not a f–king joke,” the Rotheram-raised artist continues. ”But then I also can’t help but be present in reality. What would have helped me was if one of the indie girls I used to look up to and be intimidated by had just… farted, or something. That would have been amazing!”
Taylor has learned how to take such indignities with humour and good grace. There was the time, she says, that she walked the BRITs red carpet to a muted response. Or when her sublime second LP Prioritise Pleasure narrowly missed out on the Official U.K. Charts’ top 10 in 2021, landing at No. 11. (“That was the most ‘me’ thing ever.”) Leaving the following year’s Mercury Prize ceremony – which was already hastily rescheduled following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II – empty-handed, meanwhile, was “another ‘no, not quite you’ moment.’” When asked in a subsequent Standard interview about what she collects for a hobby, Taylor playfully responded: “Awards you get for being nominated for something, but not quite winning them.”
There was a time back there, shortly after the pandemic began to wind down, when Taylor was everywhere in the U.K.’s music press. Prioritise Pleasure, with its big, ambitiously constructed choruses that contextualized vivid emotional flashpoints in Taylor’s life, was met with unanimously glowing reviews, leading to its author being subjected immediately to weighty predictions about her future. Along with Taylor’s rich voice, the record shone through its fluorescent electro flourishes and euphoric pop feel. Predecessor Compliments Please (2019) was much more of a cult concern, introducing a promising new star content looming in the wings.
Taylor has gone from existing as an underground darling to being recognized as a pre-eminent alt-pop icon. Though her singles rarely scale the charts, they remain ubiquitous at major festivals (Glastonbury, Green Man, Parklife) and in safe spaces for her devout LGBTQ+ following. There are many jobs, too, that comprise her career – she’s also a West End actress (Cabaret), video director, theatre composer (Prima Facie), panelist, radio host, TV personality – to the point that it feels like she’s hardly disappeared since her last record. This level of graft and visibility has earned her widespread industry recognition and a dazzling public reputation.
“There’s long been this weird underdog [reputation] that has echoed around me,” she says.
This back-and-forth internal monologue plays out through her forthcoming third LP, A Complicated Woman (due April 25). It contains plenty of epic, thrillingly weird music that only Taylor could create: songs about transcending fear and blowing up your life set against glowing choral melodies (“Focus Is Power”) and thumping club beats (“Mother”).
“Musically, my album sounds mental,” she jokes. “Sometimes, I think, ‘You f–king idiot. You should have just made a shoegaze album that would do well on [radio station BBC] 6Music.”
Across the new record, there’s a sense that Taylor is reckoning with her humor, dreams and anxieties while charting the next stage of her evolution. By the time she returned home after the Prioritise Pleasure tour, she says she found her world had changed, and not in the way you usually associate with an acclaimed album. “Not having a day off in almost two years” had left her feeling burnt out, and she was unable to commit to any hobbies or day-to-day routines.
At the start of creating A Complicated Woman, Taylor felt alienated from her own feelings – a strange paradox, perhaps, for an artist who has never minced her lyrics and one whose powerful live shows, for many, feel like akin to a spiritual reverie. “For me, this has absolutely been the hardest album yet,” she says. “I was saying ‘yes’ to every offer that came my way, so it was written from a place of almost being against my will. It felt like teeth being pulled at times. It was difficult and complicated.”
She picks up and puts down a cup of tea without drinking. “Though it also saw my defiance meet my depleting, ‘I want to give up’-ness, which I think you hear in the record,” she continues. “That’s how the whole [creative] process has been for me: a sense of ‘F–k this’ as well as me saying to myself, ‘Come on, woman!’”
Self Esteem
Scarlett Carlos Clarke
To hear Taylor discuss these contrasting mindsets feels very fitting. Because for A Complicated Woman, she has decided to embrace the mechanisms of the industry around her in a new way entirely. Having released her first two solo records via indie label Partisan [Idles, Laura Marling], she recently signed with Polydor, a move that places her on the brink of the big time – 15 years after she first started putting out music as one half of now-defunct indie duo Slow Club.
We meet in Universal’s north London HQ; after pulling Billboard UK in for a swaying bear-hug, Taylor slouches on a long sofa for our conversation, wearing a soft grey hoodie, trainers and a pinch of makeup. Despite her formidable onstage presence, Taylor radiates self-effacing candour and she is transparent about her business rationale.
“I feel as though I’ve done my end of the deal,” she says of her decision to step up to a major label. “What has been frustrating about the music industry for me is: I’ve done everything to the best of my ability and have worked flat out, and then my life has been spent watching artists supersede me over and over again. You know, I’m older now, so it doesn’t bother me – like, it all comes down to money and the people who can market you. I know now that getting signed doesn’t mean you’re gonna be a huge artist, but anything that helps bolster my work makes me feel hopeful.”
It’s this steadfast approach that has helped Taylor to understand the deeper roots of the unhappiness that cast a shadow over the road to album three. Having weathered a breakup and a more gradual, but eventually near-debilitating depression, she went into writing sessions wanting to rebuild herself after these experiences. Last summer, she enjoyed holidays in Dubrovnik and Crete, occasionally jotting down lyrics while she was away but otherwise remaining off-grid. In the capital, meanwhile, she remains heavily immersed in the arts and the world of drag, both of which have helped shape her musical M.O.
Later in the year, Taylor had an emotional epiphany while watching the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man. She’s effusive as she explains how its warts-and-all tale – which charts Williams’ working-class childhood in Stoke-on-Trent, through to the fallout of his departure from Take That and resulting substance abuse issues – stirred up feelings in her about her own journey, despite having gone through different hardships.
The film sees Williams, represented via a CGI monkey, start to reconnect with childhood friends after briefly hitting pause on his solo career. Taylor says that she recently made the same move, as part of wanting to envision a more sustainable future for herself in the industry. The resulting insights she’s gleaned about her relationships and mental health are encapsulated within A Complicated Woman’s core objective of accepting how it feels to be a flawed, vulnerable public person.
“None of this is about me wanting to be a c–-ty little pop star anymore. It’s sort of deeply embarrassing to me to remember the version of myself who wanted to be famous.” Taylor says. “This whole journey has taught me that what’s important is people and community. That’s what the music means to me.”
A Complicated Woman’s conclusion seems to be that hope is still worth fighting for. The melodies are adventurous, and the contradictions of Taylor’s inner psyche loom large, as she confronts both her shadow self and ego. A loud, nail-paint emoji-esque articulation of desire and asserting agency in the bedroom, “69” finds her looser and more liberated than ever. And then there are more poignant tracks like “The Curse,” which navigates despair and exhaustion with an unvarnished frankness.
Recording the latter in the height of 2024’s Brat summer – where Charli XCX’s “365 partygirl” energy felt ubiquitous – caused a minor moral dilemma for Taylor, she laughs: “I felt so embarrassed when I was making my album. I f–king love Brat, but there I was in the studio making my songs like, ‘Get up and try your best! Maybe try and drink less!’”
Taylor is looking forward to seeing her own personal ambitions evolve as her profile continues to rise. Maintaining a private life is at the top of the agenda, and she wants to remain engaged with and curious about what’s around the corner. New opportunities are keeping her “booked and blessed,” while she is working towards buying a flat and has also written a new book.
In the pipeline is A Complicated Woman Live, a “quasi-theatrical” performance art show. Directed by the Tony award-winning Tom Scutt, the run (Apr. 16-19) will see Taylor perform tracks from her back catalogue at London’s Duke of York Theatre. She remains tight-lipped about what the set-up will look like, beyond that she sees it as “my version of [David Byrne’s] American Utopia,” and will be backed by an 11-women band.
“I want women to leave these shows and go, ‘I’m not scared about getting older, f–cking bring it on,’” says Taylor. “I want queer people to feel like that too. And I want straight men to feel really worried and scared.”
Taylor will enter this new era, too, with a stronger self-preservationist streak. Her hope is to keep the goalposts firmly in one place, knowing that she feels at peace with her relative obscurity on the world stage. “Everyone’s telling me, ‘You should go to America,’” she says with a sigh. “Obviously it’d be nice because of the sheer money there is to be made out there, but Slow Club toured America so many times. I can’t go back to playing to like, 50 people!”
Well, remember Better Man? Robbie didn’t ever quite crack the States, Billboard UK posits. “Exactly,” Taylor responds. She smiles. “And that’s okay.”
A month after a California judge deemed them officially divorced, Traitors star Sam Asghari is speaking out about his seven-year relationship with ex Britney Spears. Asghari appeared on this week’s episode of Kate and Oliver Hudson’s Sibling Revelry podcast, describing how he went from appearing on Brit’s 2016 “Slumber Party” video to marrying the singer […]
Bruno Mars is currently killing it on the charts with a trio of smash collaborations, but “The Lazy Song” singer just can’t sit on his laurels. Mars has extended his long-running residency at the Dolby Live at Park MGM in Las Vegas by adding seven more shows to his run this spring and summer. The […]
He probably already knows, but here’s a helpful tip for A$AP Rocky about some potential Valentine’s Day gifts to skip this year when shopping for his longtime love Rihanna: no corny love songs please!
In a 90-second video captioned “Savage X Fenty Presents: Love Your Way!” the “Birthday Cake” singer slips into some revealing pink and purple lingerie from her Savage X Fenty collection to frost a cake and answer some sentimental, silly and sexy questions about the upcoming romantic holiday, while dropping some real talk about what she definitely doesn’t want.
After wondering if the frosting is edible — then taking a bite before finding out anyway — RihRih gets right to the heart of the matter when asked if she prefers a valentine or galentine celebration. “I’ve done galentines for, um, several years,” said the mother of two young children. “But it’s very nice to have a valentine.”
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Popping some sprinkles on top, Rihanna was on the fence when it came to choosing between lace or latex, though. “Depends on the day,” she said with a wink, noting that if given the choice between a get-away and staying at home she views staying put as its own kind of get-away.
“I just want to stay home… and watch reality TV,” the billionaire fashion and cosmetics mogul relatably said in the clip captioned “it’s not even my birthday [birthday cake emoji].”
In another useful tip for rapper Rocky, Rihanna made it crystal clear that there is one thing she never, ever wants on the day most dudes spend running out to the local Walgreens to find the last, saddest bouquet of flowers after grabbing the lamest card left on the decimated racks.
“Ugh, please! Never make me a love song!” she huffed when asked to choose between a love tune or a love letter. “That is corny, trust me. I’ve seen it,” she added conspiratorially, without hinting at who she was hinting at.
A few more tips: walk on the beach or movie night? “I say make a movie on the beach,” she said while popping raspberries on her perfect confection. Flirty banter or heart-to-heart? On that one she couldn’t even keep a straight face when trying to solemnly suggest that it’s definitely the latter, because, “I’m a very vulnerable… person.”
In the end, all that frosting was for naught, as the cake slipped from RihRih’s hands at the end and another romantic gesture bit the dust.
Check out the full video here.
Parklife Festival has confirmed its full line-up for 2025, including its second headliner. 50 Cent will top the bill alongside the previously-announced Charli XCX at the event in Manchester on June 14-15.
They’ll be joined by other new names including Jorja Smith, Peggy Gou, Lola Young, Overmono, Pawsa, Ewan McVicar, FLO, Andy C, Mella Dee, Hybrid Minds, Joy Orbison and more. Northern Irish electronic duo Bicep, meanwhile, will be bringing their Chroma AV DJ set to the weekender.
The announcement coincides with the news of Parklife’s 15th anniversary. Since its beginnings in Manchester’s Platt Fields area in 2010, the event has expanded to become one of the U.K.’s biggest weekend festivals, now operating in the 80,000-capacity Heaton Park in a northern suburb of the city.
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Last November, Parklife announced its first wave of acts, which featured Confidence Man, Antony Szmierek, Interplanetary Criminal and Jodie Harsh. View the line-up in full below.
Tickets for the festival will go back on sale on Friday (Jan. 31) at 10am (GMT), following a sold-out first release last year. Weekend tickets start at £135 plus booking fees ($168), while day tickets begin at £85 plus booking fees ($105).
The general on-sale will follow a number of presales that begin tomorrow (Jan. 29) for customers of Three, as well as those signed up to Parklife’s official mailing list.
In 2024, Parklife was headlined by Doja Cat, J Hus and Disclosure. In recent years, artists such as The 1975, Aitch, The Prodigy, Megan Thee Stallion and Tyler, The Creator have also led the charge.
New additions for this year include a brand new stage, Matinée, featuring a 360° DJ booth, as well as a more central location on the site for VIP & Backstage areas.
Check out the full lineup below.
At just 32 years old, Miley Cyrus has had a truly wild life and career. And in a sit-down with personal hero Pamela Anderson, the star confirmed that she has no regrets — except for maybe just a few small things here and there. While talking with the star of Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, […]
After keeping fans waiting for years and giving months of buildup before finally making an announcement, Lady Gaga has finally unveiled the title of her highly anticipated seventh studio album: Mayhem. The project is the long-awaited followup to the superstar’s Billboard 200-topping LP Chromatica, which last saw Gaga embracing her pop star persona at the […]
Bruno Mars is a history-making artist! The superstar is officially the first artist in Spotify history to reach 150 million monthly listeners, the streaming platform announced on Monday (Jan. 27). He is currently the number one artist on Spotify. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The accomplishment […]
